University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel addresses the media at the Regents' Room of the Fleming Administration Building while announcing the resignation of University of Michigan Athletic Director Dave Brandon during a press conference on Friday October 31, 2014 at the Ann Arbor campus.(Photo: Ryan Garza)

The University of Michigan will launch a new initiative to explore and test models to ease the effects of poverty, school President Mark Schlissel announced Wednesday morning during his annual leadership breakfast.

"We're going to roll up our sleeves and work," he said.

The initiative will be led by H. Luke Shaefer, associate professor of social work and public policy and the coauthor of "$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America."

"The initiative will be solution-oriented, building on work that focuses on understanding the causes and consequences of poverty," Shaefer said. "That work is incredibly important and will continue. Our initiative will be deeply interdisciplinary and seek to take poverty research at U-M to the next level."

The project will involve multiple schools and colleges at U-M tackling poverty from all angles. U-M teaches more than 100 poverty-related courses through its schools and colleges, including architecture; business; dentistry; education; knesiology; law; literature, science and the arts; nursing; pharmacy; public health; public policy, information and social work.

The initiative efforts will be primarily in three areas: research, teaching and practice. The approach to research will center initially on boosting economic opportunity, expanding educational opportunity and improving health.

Teaching will focus on classes in many disciplines to increase the number of students exposed to poverty issues and to prepare emerging scholars for successful careers in research, policy and practice that significantly contribute to poverty prevention and alleviation.

The third piece, practice, will be achieved by working with communities to apply what is learned. The Edward Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning will help make connections between U-M researchers and community groups, Shaefer said.

The initiative will soon release a call for proposals from junior faculty at U-M to invest in their poverty-related research. And a separate call for proposals for research projects will be conducted through the Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center, a partnership among the U-M School of Public Health, U-M School of Social Work, U-M School of Nursing, Detroit Health Department, nine community-based organizations and Henry Ford Health System.

"Engagement will be a guiding principle of what we do here," Shaefer said in a news release. "Our research will be connected to the real world. Whether we are in Washtenaw County, Detroit, Lansing or Washington, we will bring our research to policy makers and communities."

Schlissel made several other announcements, including:

The establishment of an Academic Innovation Initiative to look at how to improve teaching at the university.

That all football games next season will be zero waste events.

That U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor will visit in January for a bicentennial event.

The creation of a new chief diversity officer position, to be filled by Robert Sellers.